Peshwa Bajirao, and the 18th and 19th Centuries

Peshwa Madhav Rao, a successor of Bajirao.
Copyright Wikipedia. 

I watched the recent Bajirao Mastani movie, and started digging into history articles

The typical Indian's memory normally relates the following about the second millennium AD:

1. We had some native Hindu kings strewn across the country.
2. Muslims created successive empires headquartered in Delhi, with the Mughals being the most prominent and last of them.
3. The Mughals let British traders in, who ended up taking all of the country one kingdom after another by the 18th century
4. We got independence from the British in 1947.

The big problem with the above rendition is that this has too many glaring gaps.

Here are the glaring gaps, the way I see them. I am no expert on history, so any major aspects that I may have missed are welcome.

1. Muslim invasions into India happened almost exclusively from the Central Asian or Turkic lands. Whether it was Ghori or those that came after him.
2. By the mid 13th century, the Muslim invaders had settled down in India and started creating empire after empire based in Delhi. You are likely to have read in detail about the Delhi sultanates while in school.
3. During this time, Hindu kingdoms were not obliterated. Rather, they continued to exist, mainly under the suzerainty of an emperor, whether Mughal or other. As a subordinate ruler, you would pay quite a bit of tax to the emperor. This setup would continue right up to 1947, in fact with 100s of princes and kings 'ruling' over their kingdoms under the British Queen (via the Viceroy).
4. While the theory goes that the Mughals (at least) were all desi at heart, this is far from the truth. They still spoke the Central Asian or Turkic tongue at home, and the official language in court was Farsi. Urdu emerged due to adulteration of Farsi and the Turkic tongues (mainly of soldiers from those parts) with Hindi. 
5. Read more about how and when the Vijayanagar empire came into being, and its span; essentially all of South India.
6. By the end of the 17th century, the Mughals were in a decline, with Aurangzeb aging and Shivaji, the first Maratha Chatrapati establishing the beginnings of an empire.
7. After Shivaji, the Maratha struggle against the Mughals included Chatrapati Shahu being in Mughal prison for a good period of time. During his rule, the Peshwa (prime minister) become defactor ruler, based out of Pune.
8. Under Bajirao and his successor, the second hereditary Peshwa after Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath, Maratha expansion essentially brings some 75% of India under their control. A Peshwa would eventually align with the British and end up losing his empire.
1. In particular, Bajirao is known to have never lost a battle against any other (even larger) army, and set up his successors to expand rapidly. Too bad, they let it all go within a hundred years.
9. In effect, the Mughals were not the last empire that caved in before the British. It was a native empire.
10. It is worthwhile to mention that the Sikh empire too (in the 19th century) stood against invading rulers, including the British. Eventually they were routed, of course.

One wonders what could have happened if our native kings had been able to hold together against invaders. It is interesting to note that all the three native empires that actually fought valiantly and expanded themselves during different parts of the millennia sprang from the grassroots. This is true of the Vijayanagar, the Maratha/Peshwa, and the Sikh empires. 

It surprises me when as a people we feel patriotic about the Mughals, not knowing that they were as much invader and outsider till their very last days just like the British, and not even a fraction as much patriotism about the Marathas or the Sikhs and their empires.